RE-BOOT
by SprayCanOfDoom
Summary: Strange times are coming. The universe is a VHS tape, Rick is nowhere to be seen, and Morty is left to cooperate with a dysfunctional bodyguard that's learning how to be a human. With only small hints as to where Rick has gone, Morty is forced to follow the breadcrumbs left by his grandfather and hunt him across an uncountable amount of universes.
1. Chapter 1 - Time Hasn't Forgotten

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

This story is, well, a reboot of current ideas I've had banging around in my head for a few months ever since Season 2 began. I started with Red and Morty, and effectively failed (I admit that!). I've got my head on straight now, and know where I'm going with this, this time.

Criticism is wanted! This'll be my second attempt ever at fanfiction. I want to hear what you have to say (Even if you hate it to the core! Seriously!)! I'm always looking for outside opinions and ideas as to what to do with the story and where I might be able to take it. This fanfic is going to be a huge project (20+ chapters averaging 2k+ from here on out) with a lot of potential, I think.

 ** _WARNINGS: Contains explicit mentions of violence, death, gore, emotional abuse, depression, and insanity throughout. It's not a fetish piece, but it's definitely not for kids or anyone who doesn't like that stuff. Read at own risk!_**

* * *

" _The folly of man is a great one. Evil sits upon a throne of lies and greed, and the good can only watch idly by, forced to follow their own rules, while those without morals run free amidst chaos of their own creation._ "

Staring at the gravestone, Morty contemplated for the thousandth time how it ended like this. How could things get so fucked up? It was too much for any one teenager to bear on his shoulders. The emotional baggage he had was going to catch up with him someday, he figured.

The misty air crept from the pine trees at the bottom of the hill. Sunrise would be here any minute, and he'd have to leave again. It was peaceful, spending his nights in a graveyard, a few feet from the person that had sacrificed everything, and some more. It took Morty a long time to finally understand why he had given so much, but sitting on that hill amidst an army of the dead, it had clicked. The silence said everything.

The first ray of sunlight arose from behind the sea of trees, a hidden horizon, and he sighed. Grabbing his things, he took one last look at the gravestone.

"RICK SANCHEZ. 195X-2023"

It really was different without him.


	2. Chapter 2 - The Death of the Universe?

"Hey Morty, want to see what the death of the universe looks like?" Rick said nonchalantly, while dismantling some sort of gun-type object on his work table in the garage.

"Uh, Rick, I uh-" Morty was caught off-guard by the question. He could take most left-fielders from Rick, but this one _really_ came from left-field.

"Stop talking and put on this hat. It'll make sure your brain doesn't liquefy itself passing through the antimatter border." Rick shoved a strange helmet into his hands, and grabbed a second one for himself from a cabinet. The helmet seemed to be a typical plastic bike helmet, with holes drilled through the top of it, and a metal exoskeleton around it, complete with blinking yellow crystals of some sort.

Morty strapped on the helmet and could only manage an awkward pubescent anxious sound, except, he was at a loss for words of how to express his fear of viewing whatever the "death of the universe" was. It sounded a bit much, even for Rick standards.

Rick picked up the gun-type object that he had been working on, and quickly attached it to his portal gun. The portal gun now resembled some type of portal-shotgun, to Morty's guess.

"I'm bored, so we're going on a road trip to the death of the universe, Morty! You excited?" Rick said enthusiastically, and partly sarcastically. Rick took the portal shotgun in his hands, and opened a portal on the concrete garage floor. Morty could tell this wasn't one of the normal portals, because this portal was a dark red color, and seemed to emit a low hum.

"Ready Morty? On three, we'll both step into the portal."

Rick checked the clock on the wall. Morty stood beside the portal, shaking and unable to speak from anxiety about what was happening. In his panic, his brain managed to stumble across one thought, one phrase, that he could focus on and actually say out loud.

"What the hell Rick!" He said, now trying to ask what was even going on.

"One!" Rick said, and shoved Morty into the portal.

Rick grabbed a small cloth bag from his work table and slung it onto his back, and jumped in after Morty.


	3. Chapter 3 - The Universe is a VHS Tape

Morty fell out of the portal screaming with all the strength he could muster. He flailed his arms, screaming and screaming, blindly grasping into the empty space before him. He came to realize the space around him wasn't actually anything, after another minute or two of screaming and flailing.

Panting, and desperately trying to calm down, Morty covered his face with his hands and focused his thoughts.

 _Where the fuck is this? Where am I? What is around me?_

Thoughts ran through his head as he realized he couldn't actually 'see' anything, actually. Whenever he opened his eyes, he only saw the physical equivalent to television static. It was all around him, floating just as he was, moving with his body. Still unsure of where, or how, he was, he began to try and feel the static around him.

As soon as he tried to feel the static, his whole body felt like it was going to sleep, numb even. Panicking at doing something obviously wrong, Morty flailed some more, and the feeling dissipated.

Behind him, he could hear Rick arrive.

"Morty, what the fuck are you doing?"

Rick walked from the portal behind him to the front of Morty, somehow finding a footing amidst the static.

"Rick, Rick I don't know what is going on! Where are we? What is this static stuff? WHY AM I FLOATING?" Morty started to hyperventilate, and became red faced trying to calm himself down.

"Calm down Morty, calm down. Jesus Christ, I figured you would be used to weird shit like this. We're in the... Death, of the Universe!" Rick held up his hands, announcing the space around them like some sort of major discovery had been made.

"Rick, I don't like this! Tell me how to walk!" Morty flailed some more yet again, as Rick sighed disappointingly and took a step towards him.

"Look, Morty, we're in a place of pure nonexistence. You can only walk if you make a floor and gravity exist, you can only breathe if you make air exist, which I see you've already managed to do by proxy. Just 'will' a floor to exist, and stand up, Morty."

Morty followed Rick's instructions, and amazingly, he fell to the 'floor' and stood up on the same plane as Rick.

"Just don't forget to make a floor and gravity exist at the same time. Seriously, don't, or you're going to fall to the bottom of this bubble of nonexistence and hit the antimatter border. You don't want to do that."

Morty brushed his arms off and pressed Rick for more answers.

"Rick, what is this stuff? Why did we come here?" He was calming down, but not calm just yet. In a place of supposed nonexistence, it was hard adjusting to actually existing.

"It's nothing."

"Rick, I mean, it's clearly something, what is it? It's like when you'd turn on a television and the cable isn't plugged in, so it'd show static."

"Morty, I meant it's literally nothing. The static as you see it is just the literal manifestation of your brain trying to explain literally seeing nothing itself. It's why, no matter how far I go into the 'static', I will always be visible."

Rick pulled out something resembling a thermostat reader, and pointed it in various directions before settling on a specific one to face.

"Follow me Morty. If you thought the static is what we came here for, I've got something even better to show you." Rick's eyes lit up, his voice filled with just a pinch of foreboding excitement, a hint that this was really about to get interesting.

Rick and Morty walked for a bit before Rick suddenly stopped in his tracks, causing Morty to stop too.

"Morty, there is a VHS tape here. Do you see it?"

"Rick, there isn't a-" Morty blinked, and an oversized VHS tape was in front of them. Three times the size of a normal tape, it seemed completely normal other than its obvious size difference. The label on it read 'Family Videos' in giant scribbled writing, indicating its origins probably lie with any thousands of people who recorded family moments on VHS.

"Rick, what is a VHS tape doing here? How did it even-"

"Not now Morty, quiet. Watch this."

Rick pulled an oddly shaped lever from the cloth bag he had brought with him, and attached it to one of the VHS tape's reels on the back of it. Placing his hands on the lever, looking as if to prepare to turn it with his whole body, he paused and looked to Morty.

"Morty, this VHS tape is simply a physical manifestation of the entire history of the universe as we know it. Our minds cannot possibly comprehend understanding it in its rawest form, a completely unaltered compilation of time, so we process it by assigning it a physical form we can better understand. Not even I could tell you what it really looks like, I can only say that in theoretical physics, its appearance is more closer to thousands of supernovas captured within a gigantic black hole. And that's as close as I can get to figuring it out."

Rick spoke with a steely, serious, and intense voice to Morty, indicating this truly was a matter of utmost importance. His gaze was fierce and unfaltering, not treating this moment lightly at all, very uncharacteristic of him to be this way, Morty thought.

"Uh, Rick, don't you think this might be crossing a line, you know? I-If we're really dealing with all of time as we know it, y'know."

"Morty, if there's one thing I hope you've learned throughout your whole life, it's that to learn stuff, you need to make mistakes. W-Watch me make a pretty big one here, I have no idea what this will do."

And Rick began pulling with all of his combined strength and weight on the lever, not managing to move it an inch. Off in the distance, Morty saw a portal open, this one black and larger than any other portal Rick had made. He could see Council members begin to pour out of the portal, running towards Rick and the VHS tape.

"Rick, I, uh, we kinda have a problem."

"Morty, not now, if you've got to use the bathroom just go somewhere, I'm trying to fuck up the space-time continuum here."

Morty froze in place as he could see hundreds of Council members draw closer and closer with every sprinting footstep, yet they didn't make a sound at all. Anxiety swept over himself once again, and he found himself sputtering and hyperventilating once more at the sheer complexity and seriousness of the situation. Rick, the space time continuum, Council members that Rick was ignoring, everything was just too much at once.

Just as Council members came within 25 yards of them both, Morty saw Rick manage to move the lever an inch, and then drop off of the lever in sheer exhaustion. Council members surrounded them both, aiming their weapons only at Rick.

Rick stood up, holding his hands in the air with a sense of annoyance.

"C-137 Rick, you are charged with attempting to disturb the space-time continuum of your own current dimension. This is a cross-dimensional crime which can cause instability in many other dimensions if you had proceeded." A Council Rick with a very important-looking suit spoke with utmost seriousness, staring the Rickest Rick straight in his eyes. "Punishment for this crime is immediate and total termination of your existence."

"Well, if it isn't the Ministry of Silly Uniforms and Bad Morals. Come to tell me to knock it off, gramps?" Rick spoke sarcastically, and very annoyed.

Unexpectedly, a Council Rick in the circle formation around them disappeared. Caught off-guard by this, everyone stayed silent for a second, staring at the spot where the Council Rick had one stood.

One by one, every other Rick seemed to follow suit, disappearing into thin nothingness, except for one. He broke down, falling to his knees, hands on his head, screaming that he didn't have any memories anymore. Slowly, you could see his personality traits disappear too, until all that was left was a hollow husk of a Rick that knelt there, screaming eternally. The clothes on him withered away at an extremely fast rate, turning to dust before their eyes. His body soon followed the same fate, wisping away into dust before Rick or Morty could say anything.

"Huh. Morty, we need to get out of here." Rick said, almost panicked. Grabbing the lever and thermostat device, he shoved them into the bag and grabbed Morty by his collar.

Opening a portal onto the open space before them, Rick portaled them both out of there as quickly as he could.

Unfortunately, nothing prepared them for the world they would return to.


	4. Chapter 4 - The Good Old Call

"That was pretty boring."

Rick stepped through the portal after Morty, unfazed from what they had just witnessed and participated in. He removed the long cylindrical addition to his portal gun, and opened a normal green one on the wall, just to check if it worked normally. Closing it, and the dark red portal, both came to realize the absolute silence that surrounded them.

"Something doesn't feel right. Morty, stay here." Rick walked into the rest of the house, and Morty sat down onto the concrete, wrapping his arms around his legs.

 _What had he just witnessed? What was going on? Why did Rick seem to not care that much about the Council members disappearing before their eyes, and the one member that suffered... whatever kind of a fate that was?_

Morty didn't know how to get a grip on the situation. He knew he'd need a night or two of normality to get this out of his system. Too engrossed in his thoughts, it took him a minute to notice the absolute silence surrounding him. No birds, no distant noise of cars on the freeway, no quiet banging of a laundry machine running, nothing.

It was so silent he could hear Rick walking around the house, rummaging through something. Morty got up, and opened the garage door.

The sun shone brightly outside, a few feet away from where he stood. After his eyes adjusted, Morty could see the extent of just how empty the neighborhood had become. No one was to be seen, or even heard. A light breeze in the air, Morty walked into the street and looked both ways, unable to see any sign of human life remaining.

"Morty are you trying to get hit by a car, you-" Rick stormed out of the garage, apparently done looking through the house. He stopped in his tracks, staring with Morty at just how empty the world had become.

At the far end of the road, the entrance to the neighborhood, they both saw the family station wagon quietly turn onto the road, and halt in the middle of the road.

Like a Matador and a bull, Morty and the station wagon seemed to stare at each other for an eternity, even though only a few seconds passed. The car then backed up at full speed, turning around and speeding back the way it had come from.

Morty looked at Rick, only to get a shrug in return. Rick's face said it all, however, as his reaction was as curious as Morty's was.

He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the sound of a phone ringing inside the house. And suddenly, it was as if the world remembered how to exist, as all the normal sounds of life returned. The drone of cars on the freeway in the distance, sprinkler systems sprang alive, and the faint sounds of dogs barking came back.

"Huh. I, well- I'm going inside, Morty. Got some stuff to work on." Rick seemed just as confused as Morty was, scratching the back of his head. He cautiously walked back inside the garage, and closed the garage door behind him.

Rick probably didn't want Morty around after all that. He'd want to disappear and figure some stuff out, about whatever just happened, Morty figured. It was the middle of June, and without someone to follow around, he didn't have anything else to do.

Walking inside and to his room, he grabbed his cellphone and tried to dial his mother. Strangely, all of his family contacts were gone.

 _Probably just Summer fucking with me. Again. Real mature, Summer. Way to be considerate if I was ever in an emergency and needed to call Mom or Dad._

She'd done this before. It was annoying punching in his Mom's number on the flip phone he had gotten for his 16th birthday, but he already knew it by heart. The flip phone wasn't much, possibly the most embarrassing phone to have, but Rick had taken one look at it and supercharged it with a bunch of extra features, including not ever having to pay for cell service again, which was pretty neat.

Walking to the living room and slouching into the couch, he dialed his mother.

 _Ringing. Ringing. Ringing. Ringing. Voicemail._

How busy can a horse surgeon be? It's not like there's a horses.. requiring.. surgery, epidemic or something. Or was there? He didn't know, he never asked her about her job. Usually because the one or two times he did, it was only when she came home from work clearly upset about something. Horse death on her hands, both times. Didn't really ask that much about it after that.

 _Ringing. Ringing. Ringing. Ringing. Voicemail._

His father doesn't even have a job, why can't he answer his phone? Oh, right, he doesn't have a job. Probably couldn't afford to pay his phone bill. Then again, why did his parents separate finances like that? Morty diverted his thoughts from that subject after that, he didn't really want to consider what it probably meant.

 _Ringing. Ringing. Ringing. Ringing. Voicemail._

Summer was always glued to her phone when she wasn't obsessively talking about crushes she had with other girls, or fawning over them in public. Why wasn't she answering? This was getting pretty weird. She even had the nicer phone, too, a fancy smartphone she had gotten for Christmas one year, before Dad lost his job at the marketing company. There's no way she'd miss a call.

Morty got up from sitting on the couch and shoved his phone into his pocket. Rick had locked the door to the garage, for some reason. Knocking on the door, Rick opened it almost immediately, only opening it a crack to talk to him.

"What is it, Morty?" Rick placed an emphasis on his name that made him feel uncomfortable, almost unwanted. "I'm a bit busy here, if you can't tell. I-I'm not a teenager with time to spare, like you."

"Uh, Rick, I uh-I can't reach anyone on the phone. Mom, Dad, Summer, they're not answering their phones. I-I'm kinda worried, Rick, what if something bad happened to them, y'know? What if it has to do with seeing the car in the street and everything, you know?"

Morty's voice had a pubescent squeak to it, like it usually did. Three years and counting, he still hadn't lost it somehow. But, it had gotten deeper, thankfully, and maybe that's all that matters.

Rick looked at him aghast, as if Morty had said something he shouldn't have. He seemed to panic, and talked anxiously.

"M-Morty, don't worry about it, don't worry about it. They're probably fine, definitely fine, alright? They're probably just all busy right now." Rick kept glancing back at whatever he was working on in the garage, acting nervously about it.

"L-Look, just chill out and do whatever you want to do from here on out, alright? Go do whatever your favorite thing to do is, just go somewhere and have fun." And Rick forcefully shut the door on him, hearing it lock quickly afterwards.

 _What the hell is going on with Rick? What's he doing that's made him so freaked out?_

Morty decided to just leave it be. He'd get no further on the subject pestering Rick, he knew this. Given he usually spends all his time shadowing Rick or being dragged along on the occasional family outing, he didn't really know what else to do.

Looking through his flip phone, he realized just how many friends he actually had outside of Rick and his family. The only contact he could actually count as a 'friend' outside of 911, the janitor of the school, Jessica (whom he never managed to work up the confidence to call), and the local pizza joint, was that weird kid Raymond. He hadn't spoken to him much, but, as far as Morty knew, he was mostly available to hang out, and was overall pretty normal. Quiet, but normal.

 _Fuck it, what was there to lose? If he's cool, he'd be a cool guy to hang out with while Rick works or whatever. If he's not, well, I can cross him off my list._

Morty dialed his number. On the second ring, he picked up.

"Hello? How'd you get this number?" Ray's voice was deep, adult male-sounding, but with a sense of harmlessness in it.

"Hi, uh, t-this is Morty, from school. Do, do you wanna hang out or whatever?" Morty realized just how bad he was at introductions.

 _Too late now, I guess._

"Sure, I guess. Ain't got nothing else to do. Where do you want to meet?"

"Uh, well, I dunno, just come by my house and we can play video games or something. I'll text you the address."

"Alright man, see you there."

After texting him the address, Morty realized he actually didn't have a gaming console or computer capable of playing games. Knocking on the door to the garage once again, Rick opened it only slightly, same as last time.

"I need something to play video games."

"What, like an Xbox or something?"

"Uh, yeah, anything should do."

Rick shut the door, and reopened it a moment later, shoving a slightly hot gaming console into his hands.

"It's brand new, I just made it. Don't leave it plugged in when it's not being used or it might develop sentience. Don't bother me again, alright?" Rick closed the door, locking it almost angrily.

A possibly sentient 360? Guess it's less weird than most other stuff he's been given. He texted Ray to bring some games with him, because he realized he also didn't have any games for the brand new console he had acquired.

An hour later, after finally plugging in everything and getting it set up, the doorbell rang. At the door stood Ray, holding a rented game. "ATV Off-road Racing 3". _Guess it's better than nothing._ Inviting him in, Ray sat down on the couch and Morty grabbed a few sodas from the fridge.

Before anyone could even speak, Rick burst through the door to the garage. Morty sighed, setting down the sodas on the counter.

"What is it now, Rick?" Morty said, suddenly too emotionally tired to deal with another weird Rick situation, should this be another one.

Rick stayed silent, staring at Ray with a cold face, as if he were staring directly into his soul.

Morty tried to awkwardly break the silence, since Rick ignored his question. "Ray, meet my uh, grandfather, Rick Sanchez. Rick, meet Raymond.. something." His voice trailed off trying to remember Ray's last name. Thankfully, no one but Morty could really hear the 'something' in 'Raymond something'.

Finally, Rick spoke, still staring at Ray with a cold gaze.

"You're not supposed to be here. But you'll do just fine." Rick grabbed a device from his pocket and started adjusting it in his hands.

"Rick, is everything alright?" Rick was ignoring him for some reason. He seemed completely focused on Ray, who sat there with the most awkward looking face not even Morty could beat. _It's not exactly an unwarranted expression, either, really._ Morty thought.

Rick took the device in his hands, made a final adjustment, and pointed it at Ray. Before Morty or Ray could react, he fired it at Ray, who seemed to suffer some sort of electrocution and passed out after a second of convulsively shaking.

"Rick! What the FUCK! You can't just, just shoot my friends with, whatever that is!" Morty panicked, freaking out as he watched his almost-friend lay motionless on the couch, definitely not livid anymore, maybe not even alive.

Rick continued to ignore Morty, as if Morty didn't even exist to him. He grabbed Ray's lifeless, limp body, and dragged it into the garage, while Morty could only stand by, sputtering and trying to incomprehensibly make Rick talk about what was going on.

He entered the garage and shut the door, locking it yet again. Morty, beating and screaming on the door, tried everything he could to open the door.

"You, you can't just do this Rick! Why are you doing this? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON, RICK?" Morty slumped at the door, unable to continue. His day had been a nightmare, and it's only 4PM. The only person he could consider almost a friend outside of his family and crush, and they were shot by Rick and basically kidnapped.

He started crying. Why does his life have to be this way? Why can't he just live a normal life, not constantly being dragged out of normalcy by Rick? What external force above really, _really_ , hates the idea of Morty leading a mostly normal life?

The door to the garage opened, Morty already collapsed and weeping on the floor, too emotionally drained to deal with the situation.

"Get up."

Morty looked up from his position on the floor to see Rick towering over him. He picked himself up to a sitting position, while Rick walked further back into the Garage. In the garage he could see Ray had been strapped to some sort of machine, laid face down onto a table, wires running from the back of his forehead to various places in the garage.

"Meet your new and improved bodyguard."


	5. Chapter 5 - Echoes of the Past

"I wiped his brain, Morty. This is Project, uh, Reboot. Project Reboot."

Morty sat up from the chair he had been sitting on in the garage. Slightly dizzy and nauseous feeling, he had an air of uneasiness too him. Had he been crying?

Rick pointed to the teenager laying motionless on the table in the middle of the garage. Various wires attached to his body, flowing from under his clothes to machine throughout the garage.

Morty scratched his neck, not sure what to make of the situation.

"Uh, w-how'd he get here, Rick? Do either of us know him?" He looked at his face, crouching to view it without disturbing him. It had a sense of familiarity somehow, but Morty wasn't sure. Maybe he saw him passing in a crowd, or at a restaurant.

"He's uh, just some guy who volunteered for the program. I've got him on tape saying that, too, it's completely legitimate." Rick was defensive about showing proof, almost suspiciously.

"J-Just tell me this isn't another Hobo Park situation, al-alright Rick?"

Rick seemed to slightly sigh in relief. "It isn't, Morty. This man, right here, has volunteered to completely wipe his mind of all his memories, and become your new bodyguard. His personality, ability to read and write, et cetera, all intact too! No need to relearn any skills he already knows! That's the amazing part!"

"Rick, why do I need a bodyguard? What's going on? How did you wipe his mind but not his personality and stuff?" Morty asked anxiously. Why _did_ Rick think he needed a bodyguard? What was happening? How was a person with their mind wiped going to be a bodyguard?

"M-Morty, it's not all the way finished yet. I'm going to implant skills directly into his brain so he'll be capable of anything once I awake him after Project Reboot is complete. Now, w-which kind of bodyguard would you prefer, Martial Arts master, or, uh, 'regular' hand to hand combat master?"

Rick started typing on the computer attached to the most wires, three or four, running directly to the teenager's brain. It was probably a direct uplink of some sorts, Morty figured.

He scratched his neck again, worrying that the motion was becoming something of a nervous tic.

"I dunno, y-y'know, I guess regular combat master? You didn't answer me, R-Rick. Why do I need a bodyguard?"

Rick deflected his question completely, obviously avoiding it.

"Regular combat master implemented. Bland choice, really. But, he won't be completely bland! Not if I'm in charge, which I am." He glanced at Morty with a look of annoyance at his choice in hand to hand combat. "I'm giving him extreme proficiency with any handheld weapon."

"Sadly, with everything else I'm going to implement into his brain, that's about the only other skills I can fit inside his brain."

Morty took a closer look at the teenager laying on the table. Stocky and slightly overweight, he wasn't an obvious first choice for anything like a bodyguard.

 _Rick must have taken whatever he could get. Or is it just not worth it trying to get anyone better?_

"W-why'd you choose this guy, Rick? What makes him a good choice for a bodyguard, Rick?"

Rick took a second from his continuous typing to look at Morty, and speak directly to him.

"Because, Morty, you never want a robot to try and get you out of a sticky situation. Too dumb and unemotional to be a good hero, and have larger weaknesses than humans. God forbid someone not completely archaic set off an electromagnetic pulse, or a solar flare hit whatever planet you're on. And then? You're just left to fend for yourself, because robots suck at doing anything other than taking directions."

Rick went back to typing, finishing with a few strokes and a sarcastically dramatic press of the Enter key. He began detaching the wires attached to the teenager, and turning off the machinery connected to them.

Morty, fed up with being ignored, collected himself and asked Rick outright, with bravery and some semblance of confidence.

"Rick, why do I need a bodyguard? Why did we visit the 'death of the universe'? What does all of this mean, Rick?"

Rick stopped, cable in hand, and looked at Morty with utmost seriousness. He opened his mouth to speak, but couldn't find the right words. He turned his head away, and sighed.

"Morty, you're too important to lose. There's, there's something coming very soon, and I need to have peace of mind about your safety and survival when that happens. And frankly, I couldn't live with myself if you were harmed during it. J-Just, just trust me, alright?"

He averted his eyes from Morty, and began disconnecting the cables and wires attached to the new bodyguard at a slower pace. Finally, only the last and largest cable remained, connected directly to the back of his neck. No thicker than your average power cord, this cable was by far the thickest and most important-looking one, by Morty's standards.

"Well, time to see if this works. H-Here, Morty, hold this in case he goes berserk and needs to be deactivated immediately."

Rick handed Morty a handheld device resembling a futuristic gun, heavy and cold in his hands.

"It's a disintegration ray. Don't accidentally pull the trigger, or all bets are off. I need to focus on monitoring everything, so you need to be the guard in this situation. Can you handle that, Morty?"

"Rick, uh, geez, I don't know how to operate this thing. I-I don't feel properly able to safely handle t-this device, y-y'know?" Morty's hands trembled with the realization of how much power he held in his grasp. Who gives a gun that can turn anything biological into dust, to a 16 year old?

"M-Morty, just flip the red switch on the top, and it'll turn on. I assume you're smart enough to be able to fire a gun, right? J-Just apply normal gun logic to this handheld raygun."

As Morty flipped the red switch and the raygun silently vibrated to life, Rick began powering up a small computer on one of the tables. It displayed a readout of heart rate, brain activity and other stuff Morty didn't really understand. Currently, everything read at zero.

"Time to make another mistake, here we go!" Rick grabbed the last cable and ripped it out of the socket embedded in the teenager's back. The readout on the computer sprang to life, somehow triggered by the cable disconnecting from the patient... or, test subject?

Morty watched silently, staring with fear and anxiety at the person on the table, hoping he didn't have to actually shoot anyone, or any _thing,_ with the raygun in his hands. No movement had come from them so far, while Rick monitored the readout.

For a moment, their vitals flatlined. The heart rate monitor emitted the typical long, unending tone of no heart activity.

"Shit" Rick said, quickly grabbing a taser-looking device and jamming it onto their back. Pressing the button on it, it seemed to jolt their body, and the heart rate displayed a normal readout afterwards. Tossing the device aside, Rick went back to looking at the screen.

"Well, now, everything seems normal. He's not dead, so he's got that going for him." He said, staring at the readout screen, and typed something into the computer once more.

Morty saw his hands begin to slowly open and close. Before he could even say something, Rick was intensely staring at his hands, observing their slow opening and closing movement. He flicked one of his fingers with his own, with force, and a low groan from came from the patient.

Now, more anxious and fearful than ever, Morty didn't know what to make of the situation. He probably wouldn't even be able to aim properly if anything went wrong. Rick didn't seem to notice this development in Morty's psyche, however, and was left to just tremble rapidly in position with an activated disintegration ray in his hands.

 _Was this technically resurrecting the dead? Was he even dead to begin with? What is someone with no memories like? Shouldn't Rick have uploaded combat skills after we made sure he wasn't going to react violently?_

Questions raced through Morty's mind as Rick paced around the room, grabbing various tool-type objects and measuring what they did on the patient.

"Before he gains full consciousness, I've got one thing to do." Rick grabbed a device looking much like a laser pointer, and engraved something into the patient's arm.

" **ANOMALY | C-137** " the inscription read, slight smoke drifting up from the burned scar he had just created on the patient.

"His nervous system is going to hate that when it wakes up. I'll just load him with some morphine once it's safe to." Rick tossed the laser pointer engraver aside, and checked both of the patient's eyeballs for activity.

"Any moment he should be waking up now. It's taking him long enough, isn't it Morty? Heh." Rick's attempt at humor in the situation did nothing to calm Morty down, nor did he acknowledge his current state of silent panic going on.

Rick soon got frustrated with how long the awakening process was taking.

"Wake up, asshole! I don't have all day!" He said frustratingly, shaking his body on the table.

And suddenly, he just sat up.

Rick stopped shaking him, Morty froze in fear, and the patient stared at them both with a simple expression of curiosity.

After a few moments of silence between the three, he broke the ice.

"Who am I?" He said inquisitively.

"You're not anyone. Not yet, at least." Rick said flatly, admiring what he had created. "Morty, you can turn off the raygun. Put it away, somewhere, I don't care."

The patient on the table observed his limbs, one by one, as if just discovering them. He ogled his hands like some sort of feat of nature, which is where most of his attention went. Somehow dumbfounded by being able to move both hands, fingers, and arms at the same time, Morty sidestepped over to where Rick was, not taking his eyes off of the strange teenager alive and naked on a table in their garage.

In a hushed and panicked voice, Morty spoke to Rick. "Rick! What the hell is going on? I thought you said he knew stuff and things, you said he would be smart!"

In an equally low tone of voice, Rick replied "M-Morty, be cool, right now he's basically an infant. He won't be for long, once his brain happens to stumble upon everything already in it one by one."

As they both observed him becoming fascinated by his toes and feet, Rick kept talking. "And I never said he'd be smart either. I just made him good at killing people. If he's dumb, it's his own previous education's fault, alright?"

Rick stepped closer to the table, grabbing the patient's attention.

"So, uh, I'm Rick. Your father and creator, mostly." He seemed to absorb and accept this as fact almost immediately.

 _Very impressionable_ , Morty thought. _Could be useful in the future, if he's always like this?_

"Hello father. Who am I?" Repeating his question, he probably needed a name to satisfy his curiosity for now, Morty guessed.

"What do you want to be called? What will your name be?" Rick asked in return.

He looked away momentarily, as if searching for something to be called in his mind. Finally, he seemed to settle on something, his face detailing every step of this process.

"I like the color red. I want to be called Red."

Morty decided that, after assigning himself a name, Red seemed to be pretty infantile and harmless. Overcoming his fear and anxiety, he swallowed the lump in his throat and summoned some confidence out of nowhere.

Walking over to where Red sat on the table, he extended his hand to shake.

"I'm Morty. Morty Smith."

"Red. Nice to meet you."


	6. Chapter 6 - It's Too Early to Sleep

A monitor in the garage began emitting a low hum. Rick hurriedly checked it, and began acting in a hurry. Grabbing a bag, he began shoving various items from around the garage into it.

Morty, still perplexed by the still infantile nature of Red, began to question him further.

"Why'd you choose the name 'Red', Red?"

He froze, as if a simple question required for him to cease all thought and focus all thought on it.

"Red is the color of blood. It's a good thing to see blood. It means I won."

Morty, disturbed by how quickly the conversation went from lighthearted to very uncomfortable, quickly tried to find something else to focus on. His attention turned to Rick, who was still pacing around the garage, sifting through his stacks of unknown junk and alien technology, ripping open cabinets and searching through them in a clear panic.

"R-Rick, what're you searching for? A-Anything I can help with?"

Rick stopped still in his tracks, freezing as if he was caught red-handed with a hand in a cookie jar. He stood up straight, and turned to Morty.

"No, no, I think I've already found what I need, Morty."

He grabbed the bag of items he had collected from around the garage, and his portal gun. Walking towards the open garage door, he set the bag on the ground and performed once last physical test on Red. Pulling a laser pointer from his pocket, he shined it into each of Red's eyes, Red not wincing in the slightest.

"He's done.. He's complete. I don't need to be here any longer..."

Muttering to himself, Morty couldn't help but overhear those very sentences, and subsequently become increasingly worried for what was going on.

"R-Rick, y'know, if there's a-anything going on, anything at all, y-you should probably tell me, y'know."

Rick pocketed the laser pointer, and grabbed the bag again. Hoisting it over his shoulder with one hand, portal gun in the other, he stood in the open garage door. The light illuminating his figure, he stood in the doorway, making an imposing figure against the light.

He turned to Morty, with a stone cold face of determination. Wiping away his ever-present drool, he spoke to Morty with an authoritative and commanding tone.

"Morty, in the coming weeks, and months, you're going to suffer because of myself, and my actions, and because of what I am about to do. I cannot apologize enough, and can only hope my gift to you can ease the burden you face."

Morty, still not sure what was going on, put two and two together.

"L-look, Rick, if you need to go on an adventure b-by yourself for once-"

"Silence. Morty, I can only hope I've taught you enough in your pseudo-apprenticeship with me. You're a resourceful kid. Resourceful enough that I leave you with your freedom, and a tool that will protect that freedom if you use it correctly."

Rick opened a portal on the ground in front of him, in his usual manner.

"That tool, and gift, is Red. Goodbye, Morty."

He saluted with his free hand, and jumped into the portal he had opened, it closing quickly after.

Morty, only now realizing what was happening, tried to scramble into the portal. It was too late. He simply hit the pavement in a painful matter, and proceeded to lay there in silence, shaking.

 _Maybe he'd come back, you know? Maybe he's just going away for a short time, and he's just pranking me again. Yeah, he's probably just pranking me. He'll come back any second and laugh his ass off, like he usually does._

He laid there, waiting for the sound of a portal opening up. He heard the wind flowing lightly, the chirp of birds, and a lawnmower in the distance.

But no portal. Nothing to indicate Rick had returned, or would return soon.

He sat up, as the pavement was starting to dig into his arm and add to the residual pain of colliding with the ground. Brushing miscellaneous rocks and rubble off of himself, he took notice that Red was nowhere to be seen.

 _Fuck. Now he's gone too._

"R-Red? RED?" He said, almost letting panic enter his voice.

He got an answer from within the house.

"Yeah?"

Red seemed to speak with a much more.. 'knowledgeable' tone than ever before.

"W-where are you? Where'd y-you go?"

"Rooting for supplies."

Morty got up, and walked inside. Red seemed to have gotten rid of his original clothes, or at least, what had remained of them. Instead, he was wearing a leather jacket Morty's dad had bought when he pretended to be a biker, and only worn twice, as well as fashioning a red armband from an unknown fabric scrap, and blue jeans.

The house looked like it had been ransacked. Red was sitting in the middle of the living room on the floor, the rest of the furniture shoved out of the way. He had torn apart any electronic he could get his hands on, including the game console Rick had given him, and the TV it had been attached to.

Morty, taken aback by the sight that lay before him, stood still amidst the chaos that had happened in the house.

"W-What exactly a-are you trying to do here?"

Red paused to look at Morty, not with a face of annoyance at a question, but with a face that was eager to explain.

"It's a crossbow that fires electrically charged bolts. I was initially going to use bolts that were individually powered by household batteries, but this desktop had enough capacitors to make each bolt simply require to be charged up, meaning you can use an individual central battery on the whole crossbow. Which is useful since-"

"STOP!"

Morty yelled with a surge of confidence, confidence born out of complete lack of control of the situation that was evolving out of his control.

"WHY do you NEED a capacitor-battery-crossbow- _thing_?"

"There were no other available weapons on-hand that would be effective in a combat situation. I saw fit to utilize surrounding resources to manufacture a weapon."

"That doesn't answer _A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G_! Why do you need a WEAPON?"

Red displayed confusion on his face, as if the question didn't make sense to him.

"Well, because Protect Morty of course." He said matter-of-factually.

Morty was clearly exasperated at this point, almost at his wits' end with everything that was going on.

"PROTECT MORTY?" He said out loud, enunciating the sheer nonsensicality of the phrase.

"Protect Morty." Red shook his head, agreeing with the statement, and went back to work on the crossbow he was working on.

Morty, fed up with everything that was going on, stormed off to his room. Intent on simply retreating from life for a few hours on his laptop, he arrived at his room only to find it had been picked clean by Red. His laptop missing, and with nothing to do but sit and fume, he slammed the door, jumped onto his bed, and began screaming into his pillow in the sweet, silent darkness of his room.


End file.
